RIYADH, 29 June 2004 — One of Saudi Arabia’s most wanted terrorists surrendered yesterday, the second suspect to turn himself in under a one-month government amnesty announced last week.
Othman Hadi Al-Maqbul Al-Amri, 37, gave himself up after two years on the run, an official source at the Interior Ministry said.
“I surrendered of my own free will, having trusted the words of Crown Prince Abdullah,” a local journalist quoted Al-Amri as saying after his surrender.
A well-known religious scholar, Safar Al-Hawali, who served as a mediator between Al-Amri and the authorities, said the suspect was due to meet Assistant Interior Minister Prince Muhammad ibn Naif later yesterday.
Al-Hawali, who has offered his service as a mediator in the past, said he had been in contact with Al-Amri since last Ramadan.
Al-Amri “came this afternoon from Bani Amr (in Asir) to Jeddah,” he said.
“Othman thanked the crown prince for his amnesty and called on the other (suspects) to take advantage of it,” he added.
A source told Arab News the suspect insisted on driving to Jeddah on his own and surrendering only at Al-Hawali’s home on Arbaeen Street.
Plainclothes police surrounded the house shortly after his arrival.
Al-Amri figures 21st on the Interior Ministry’s most-wanted list established at the end of last year.
The list included 26 suspects but to date 11 of them have either been killed or jailed.
Al-Amri’s surrender came five days after Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Fahd announced the partial amnesty aimed at ending a wave of Al-Qaeda-linked attacks, mostly on foreigners.
Officials said the state would drop its claims against the militants but added they would then face being tried under Shariah law. This would mean that families of their victims could press for punishment.
Al-Amri, a renegade former non-commissioned army officer, fought in Afghanistan, a source said, but declined to say whether he had been directly involved in recent attacks.
Al-Amri was from the southwestern province of Al-Namas. He reportedly dropped out of primary school, but later joined a technical school affiliated with the Defense Ministry, graduating as a corporal and later being promoted to sergeant. He was fired for corruption and theft, rehired and discharged again.
Al-Amri, married three times and twice-divorced with five children, later worked as a court clerk and opened a vegetable stall. His family said he disappeared in December 2002. They speculated in Saudi press reports he probably had gone to Iraq after the US-led war started in March 2003.
Last year his mother told a local newspaper she believed he died there.
A former associate said Al-Amri was short-tempered but not particularly religious and rarely prayed. Both his mother and his wife Aziza believed he was bewitched and consulted a number of religious scholars for treatment.
Amri was close to Saaban Al-Shehri, a wanted militant who turned himself in last week, he added. Shehri was not on the list of 26 most wanted suspects.
Interior Minister Prince Naif said this week the amnesty was a sign of the Kingdom’s strength, not weakness.
“After the one-month deadline we will hit them harder,” he said yesterday.
At least 85 police and civilians, many of them foreigners, have been killed in suicide bombings and shootings by terrorists linked to Al-Qaeda, which is bent on ridding the Kingdom of “infidels”.
— With input from Hassan Adawi
